The Last Flight of Poxl West

January 12, 2015
Torday introduces readers to Poxl West, whose bestselling 1980s memoir Skylock is the book within this riveting debut novel. Eighteen-year-old Poxl fled his native Czechoslovakia for Rotterdam when Hitler rolled into Austria, never to see his parents again. As the war progressed, he made his way to London, eventually flying bombers in the RAF. Those impossibly difficult war years unfold over five acts, which constitute the Shylock part of the structure and which alternate with the narrative of Elijah Goldstein, Poxl’s young nephew. Torday’s descriptive and powerful prose stands as the book’s highlight. The book-within-a-book memoir is a page-turner, particularly as Poxl remembers his mother and father and their marriage, and his time in London during the Blitz. His fixation and guilt over the love he left behind in Rotterdam, though, nearly devolves into navel gazing. The author recalibrates his character’s self-indulgence in time for Skylock to end on a poignant note. Elijah’s chapters culminate with him looking at his uncle through more mature eyes. Torday’s restraint as this story line takes on new importance shows mastery of his craft, culminating with a tender ending to Elijah’s narrative.

Starred review from December 1, 2014
Elijah Goldstein's devoted Uncle Poxl is a Jewish World War II fighter pilot and an overnight literary sensation. What more could a boy want?While Torday (The Sensualist: A Novella, 2012) is more likely to be compared to Philip Roth or Michael Chabon than Gillian Flynn, his debut novel has two big things in common with Gone Girl-it's a story told in two voices, and it's almost impossible to discuss without revealing spoilers. The reversal that defines this novel arrives late and changes the meaning of everything that's come before, but that's all you'll hear about it here. One of the two narrators is Elijah Goldstein, a 15-year-old student in Boston, who begins his tale, promisingly, like this: "Before halftime on Super Bowl Sunday, January 1986, my uncle Poxl came over. He was just months from reaching the height of his fame, and unaware that the game was being played." This fame results from publication of Skylock: The Memoir of a Jewish RAF Bomber, which Uncle Poxl has read aloud to Eli in manuscript over sundaes at Cabot's after outings to the opera and the symphony. The entire text of Skylock appears here as a book within a book. Poxl's memoir opens with his childhood in Czechoslovakia, where he's the son of a wealthy leather-factory owner and a bohemian mother who poses nude for Egon Schiele. When the Anschluss begins, his parents send him to Rotterdam, where he falls hard for a prostitute. His next move takes him to London, where he joins the war effort and ultimately flies a bomber in a firefight over Hamburg. After each section of the memoir, Eli returns to fill us in on reviews in the Times and the Economist, the book signings and the things we will not be discussing in this review. A richly layered, beautifully told and somehow lovable story about war, revenge and loss.

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January 1, 2015
Interest in WWII fiction continues unabated, and this novel by Torday, winner of the National Jewish Book Award for The Sensualist (2012), should find an eager audience. Narrator Elijah Goldstein offers an affectionate story of his uncle Leopold ( Poxl ) West (originally Weisberg), a Czech-born RAF fighter pilot, his life and loves, particularly Francoise, met (and regrettably abandoned) before the war in Rotterdam. Uncle Poxl (not really an uncle), mentor to the teenage Goldstein, is portrayed through Eli's eyes but primarily through Poxl's own best-selling memoir, cleverly titled by the Jewish war hero, Skylock. Within those memoirs, descriptions of the German bombing of London and of the airborne warfare over Hamburg are vividly presented. In reading Poxl's memoirs, Elijah must come to terms with truth, heroism, betrayal, and remorse. A well-crafted and moving novel.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)

February 1, 2015

Poxl West has just published a memoir of his experiences as a Czechoslovakian Jewish refugee who became an RAF fighter pilot during World War II. His nephew, Elijah Goldstein, basks in the reflected aura of Uncle Poxl's success. However, there's a problem. Soon after the book's publication, Poxl is exposed as a fraud. He never flew the missions he described. The man who had been Elijah's surrogate grandfather disappears from his life, depriving the boy of his greatest hero. Telling this story by alternating between Poxl's memoir and Elijah's present-day experiences, the author of the award-winning novella The Sensualist crafts an elegant debut of how war affects individuals, how disappointment in our loved ones can turn a life around in seconds, and how that life can be repaired. VERDICT Torday (director of creative writing, Bryn Mawr Coll.) is a polished writer who creates an unforgettable character for whom the term flight describes his whole life. Poxl's inability to reconcile his love for people with their less-than-heroic behaviors, in the end, leaves him completely alone. This portrait of a Holocaust survivor's experiences is innovative, and its page-turning plot will keep readers on the edge until the very end. [See Prepub Alert, 9/29/14.]--Andrea Kempf, formerly with Johnson Cty. Community Coll. Lib., Overland Park, KS

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014

Winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for debut fiction for his novella, The Sensualist, Torday here ups the odds with writing that's making everyone in-house stop and stare. Elijah Goldstein worships his worldly Uncle Poxl, but when Poxl's memoir reveals that he escaped his Czech home after his parents' death to become an RAF pilot and bomb German citizens to smithereens, Elijah begins to recognize his uncle as a darkly pained individual.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.